Former Union Minister, Beni Prasad Verma, claimed that though Narendra Modi became prime minister of the country but still Congress is the only national party in the country.
``Modi’s victory in the recent elections does not mean that BJP turned out to be a national political party, the status only enjoyed by the Congress”, claimed Verma, while pledging that he will remain in the Congress for rest of his life and that Rahul Gandhi will be his leader. Verma, was reacting to rumours of his leaving the Congress and joining Samajwadi Party (SP),here at his residence on Monday afternoon.
“A section of the media is showing speculative news regarding me joining SP, which I out rightly reject. There is no question of my son Rakesh joining the SP either,” Beni told reporters at his residence. Such rumours were being spread as a part of a “conspiracy” and possibility of involvement of some person from Congress could not be ruled out. “This is true that I was with the SP for 30 years, but I left the party due to acts of its supremo. Now I am in Congress and will die under the tricolour,” Beni said.
Calling serving Congress as the biggest achievement of his life, Beni said that even his father was a Congressman and used to put picture of former prime minister Jawahar lal Nehru. ``I feel proud working with the family members of Jawahar lal Nehru, whose picture was put by my father as he was Panditji’s great admirer”, Beni asserted while saying that he had no greed of power like other leaders who give up their ideologies and changed parties just in search of greener pastures. ``I remained minister twice in Centre, thrice in State besides winning MlA and MP elections several times so I had no greed of post”, Beni claimed adding that he was not upset with his defeat as all the senior leaders, which included leaders like Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee etc had lost elections. Verma lost to BJP candidate from Gonda constituency in the lok Sabha polls.
He said Congress has become weak and the process started with the demolition of disputed structure at Ayodhya. “At that time Muslims went with the SP and with emergence of BSP dalit voters got associated with it,” Verma said. The former Union minister said Congress has to struggle and move forward, and it has to create its social base. He said that Yadav and Dalits were disenchanted with SP and BSP respectively and Congress should take advantage of this. Beni claimed that the previous Manmohan Singh government strengthened the economic condition of the country by 10 times, but Congress failed to publicise it. He alleged that the BJP took advantage through propaganda of scams.